Her mother had given birth to another baby, probably that winter. A baby girl wearing her Christening gown. Who is this baby? What happened to it? Did it die in the car with her mother and nobody told her? She ejects the disk then and immediately Googles her mother’s name and date of death, searching for any information. She tries every variation of words, date, location. But it all happened so long ago, there is no internet record of the accident.
Upstairs in her bedroom, the white lace curtains fill with a sea breeze. Her gaze moves back and forth between the window and her bed until she grabs the foot of it and swings it around before reaching for the white-painted headboard and pulling it even. She inches the heavy bed over to the window this way, pushing and pulling until perspiration and tears cover her face, until her hair is a mess. She looks out at that sky and thinks of Jason’s words. Every day. He misses his brother every day. It never goes away.
She knows that feeling of missing someone. Now it seems she has missed someone more than her mother. Someone else, maybe a sister, has left a mark on her life.
Every day, Jason said, standing in front of the sea.
The night sky over Long Island Sound bursts with stars and memories and words of the past, words about the sea and its sky and finding comfort in their enchanted presence. The constellations are a crisscrossing network of love, filled with stories as old as time, stories about love and pain, about family and home. The stars glimmer at each special connection, and she knows that one connection, somewhere over the sea, belongs to her and her sister.
Chapter Twelve
Sometimes it takes years of living life to understand a situation fully. Maris doesn’t have years. She has days. The next morning, warm sea air spills in the bedroom window and glances her skin like a mother’s touch. She sits up and pulls the sheet over herself, nowhere near ready to pack and leave.
Scott will be here tomorrow. “No,” she says, “no, no, no,” before grabbing the phone from the nightstand and punching in his number. It’s early and he’ll still be asleep in Chicago, but at least she’ll catch him before he leaves for work.
She stops dialing, though, and hangs up. What would she say to him? Oh, by the way, my parents had another baby thirty years ago. Give me a few days to find her? He would think she was crazy, or at the very least he’d scoff at her story. The bottom line dictates Scott. Contracts and projections and negotiations.
And that’s when she knows how to buy more time. She dials the number again.
“Can’t you handle it long distance?” he asks when she makes up a story about multiple offers on her father’s house. “Your agent can fax the offers to you here. You sign off on them and fax them back. It’s legal.”
“But there could be a bidding war. It’ll be easier to handle this way. From here.”
“In this day and age, distance isn’t an issue. She can email you any details.”
“I know. But then there’s the home inspection. What if the sale is contingent on repairing some plumbing problem or patching the roof?”
“How long?” he finally asks after an uncomfortable pause.
“I’m not sure. A couple of weeks maybe?”
“Maris.”
“What?”
“Is that all it is?”
“What do you mean?”
“Selling the house. Are you sure you’re not rethinking things with us?”
“No, Scott.” She still slips the engagement ring on and off, more than once a day. “My father died. You know I have legalities to take care of. And I might head into Manhattan one day for that job I’ve been offered. They want an answer, and if I can work out of Chicago, it’s something to consider. Seriously, I’m not rethinking us.” She takes a long breath, thinking of the home movie and rethinking a different kind of love. Or maybe all love. That film has her doubt everything now. “I’ll call you when I hear something. I promise.”
“On one condition. I’ll postpone my flight, but I’m not cancelling it. I’ll reschedule it for two weeks from tomorrow. If the house is still under negotiation, it’ll push your agent to sign off on it knowing you’re leaving soon.”
“Two weeks. I think that should work.”
As she hangs up the phone, what feels a lot like relief brings tears to her eyes. Two weeks.
“What are you doing?”
Kyle jumps at the sound of Lauren’s sleepy voice. “Ironing.” He presses the iron down in a cloud of steam without looking at her.
She walks into the kitchen. “This early?”
He had opened the wall unit ironing board and spread his white apron over it. “It’s late, for me. I’ve got to be at work in twenty minutes.”
“Why so early? The diner doesn’t open until seven.”
“Two deliveries are coming. Why don’t you go back to bed?”
“I’m up now.”
He looks at her standing there in her nightshirt, her robe hanging loose, her hair sleep-mussed, then turns the apron over in silence.
“Why would you iron your apron?” she asks while plugging in the coffee pot.
His arm moves back and forth over the white fabric. “I read a book on effective management. It said image is important to show authority. You know, like keeping appearances professional makes you look confident. And that translates to authority.” He glances down at his new shoes. “I’m trying to look professional.”
“How do you check in the deliveries?”
“It’s not bad. I confirm the delivery against the requisition. If it doesn’t match up, we’ve got a problem that management has to work out.”
“Oh. And management would be you.”
Kyle folds the apron in half. “Why don’t you leave for work a little early? Stop by for a coffee?”
Lauren shakes her head. “I’m going to pack some kitchen stuff before I go in to work. Maybe when we’re on vacation and I’m not so busy.”
He unplugs the iron and drapes the pressed apron over his arm. Jerry expects the cooks to dress in black pants and shirts, with white aprons. “I’m late. Can you put away the iron?”
“Sure. Go on.” She motions him away.
They talk only because if they don’t, the silence asks that they reconsider their relationship. Which he does, in his own silence in the predawn hours, and during the ride to The Dockside, and in the minutes waiting for his morning deliveries. His chest feels heavy and driving to work, he wonders if he is having a heart attack so he takes long, deep breaths and it feels like he can keep inhaling, like the air isn’t reaching the right place.
At the diner, he leans around the packages in his arms, turns the key in the double locks, walks in and locks the door behind him. When the packages start slipping, he hoists them but doesn’t turn around. Turning around means seeing the empty room and picturing every single table full by 7:30. Instead he keeps his eyes to the floor, walks quickly past the napkin dispensers, the salt and pepper shakers, the menus standing straight at each table and heads past the kitchen to the office, where he drops his keys, notepad, the brown paper bag and a couple of library business books on the desk, before carefully hanging his white apron on a hook behind the door. Then he grabs a cloth in the kitchen and wipes down all the tabletops again. Last night, he stayed late and sprayed clean the glass doors and the inside of the windows. Anything to not screw up.
Someone raps loudly as he bends over a long table, wiping it in a sweeping motion, and he turns to see Matt on the other side of the door, dressed in full uniform.
“Hey guy,” Matt says. He comes inside and waits for Kyle to lock up the door again.
“Matt. What’s up?”
“I’m on my way home from work. Thought I’d stop in and see how it’s going.”
Kyle grabs the cleaning rag from the table. “I’m running the show today.”
Matt takes off his State Police hat. “You nervous?”
“Nah. You know. Come on, I’ll give you the grand tour.”
He walks him through the freezer, the b
ack office and the kitchen, past spotless stovetops, and utensils lined up precisely, and tall towers of napkins.
“Have you talked to Barlow?” Kyle asks as he turns on the coffee at the front counter. The pot gurgles and coffee aroma rises from it.
“I saw him last night.” Matt sits on a stool at the counter and slowly spins around. “He stopped by to check up on the crew at my house.”
Kyle turns to see Matt eyeing the empty room, the fishing net hanging from the side wall and a small array of colorful buoys framing the doorway. “He’s okay?” he asks.
“Seemed to be. But I didn’t bring up that night with you.”
“He deals with some crazy shit sometimes. Hey, how about a coffee?”
“No way, Kyle. I’m beat. This is my sleep time.”
“That’s pretty tough, sleeping with them banging hammers at your place.”
“I close the door and tune it out.” He stands and puts his hat back on. “Listen. I wanted to tell you good luck. Eva and I’ll stop by for lunch one of these days.”
Kyle swings his hand around to shake Matt’s as the back buzzer sounds. “That’s my dairy delivery. I’ll let you out that way.” He walks Matt to the rear door while pressing his damp hand into the fabric of his pants, then turns back to stack the dairy order as the deliveryman wheels it in on a hand-truck. There is enough milk and eggs and cheese and butter to keep the place going for a couple of days. After lining it sequentially by date in the refrigerator, he goes to the office and pulls out a framed picture of his kids from the grocery bag and sets it beside the telephone. Perspiration trickles down his face and he glances at his damp hands before brushing them on his pants again. Everything needs to be laid out within easy reach. He opens his new planner to the right July week and lines it up in front of the telephone, laying a new pen diagonally across it. The calculator goes in the top desk drawer and will be used to tally the day’s numbers.
“Jesus, breathe,” he says, then gives the side window a good shove, pushing the sticking sash open and sucking in a deep breath of outside air. When he turns back to the bag, all that is left in it are five packages of black tees, each containing two shirts. He’s been so nervous lately, he can shower twice a day. Sometimes three times. He sets the stack of packages on a top wall shelf, first ripping one of them opened and unfolding a new tee, holding it in his hand as he returns to the desk chair and clicks the keys at the computer.
A large photograph of The Dockside hangs near the window so that Jerry can look at it, then gaze outside and imagine it is his boat docked on the open waters. Kyle studies it, trying not to think that the shirt he put on at home is soaked through. It would be easy to blame it on stacking the milk and cheese, going in and out the back door into the summer morning.
But that isn’t it, and he knows it. In one swift move, he pulls off his damp shirt and wipes it over his face and neck, then tosses it into the trash can and slips the new one on over his head before his staff arrives.
If illustrating fashion designs is creating an illusion of reality, Maris thinks she should be damn good at it then. Her whole life is apparently an illusion of reality. Sitting in the kitchen with a full pot of coffee, she considers the sketches spread around her on heavy-weight paper. Using markers to give a full-color reality, her hand fills in the sketched jeans and denim jackets with shades of blues and grays, using rough strokes to convey energy. The diagonal pattern she draws is evidence enough that the fabric here is denim. Just like the baby’s birth records will be evidence enough, filed in some public records, of the obvious.
It is the stuff that’s not obvious, the reasons and the mystery, that draw her. Her customers can get denim clothing anywhere. So she has to give them something more, something they need without even being aware of it. She’s needed something too, without being aware of it, all her life. Her sister. Are there international directories on the internet? Her hand rises to her necklace. Can she find the aunt who once sent her the star pendant?
Turning to her gel pens, she looks at the designs covering the countertops, the table, and even the floor, then adds the finishing gold stitches and rivets, finally establishing the need. Every denim piece in this line will feature a subtle constellation. A curve of stars running across a shoulder, or a few twinkling around a belt line. Constellations are stories in the stars, and don’t women need stories, seeking to find themselves, seeking wishes when they look skyward? Ever more aware of the body beneath the clothes now, on one last bell bottom design she creates volumes of fabric from the bend of the knee to the top of the foot, with the bell falling in folds. Her gel pen dots silver stars rising from within them. Then she picks up her stylus and adds stars to the sketches on her digital design pad as well.
If it weren’t for the knock at the door then, more designs would have spread into the living room next. She is surprised to see Jason outside, his back to the door as he waits.
“Jason?” she asks. Madison stands beside her, wildly wagging her tail. Maris opens the door and the dog squeezes past.
“Hey, Maris,” Jason says, bending down and scratching the scruff of the dog’s neck. “Okay, you too, Madison. I’m glad I caught you at home.”
“Come on in.” She pushes the screen door further open. “What’s up? Can I get you anything?”
“No. This won’t take long.” Madison distracts him, pushing her muzzle into his hand and making him laugh. “I just need to ask you something.”
She moves to a white wicker chair and motions to a matching chair beside hers. “Sure, sit down.” Both chairs face the road outside, framed by the petunias spilling from her porch flower boxes. “Did you come from work?” she asks, noticing his suit pants and white button-down shirt.
“I delivered some preliminary designs this morning. Routine stuff.” He loosens his tie. “And I want to make sure you’re doing okay today.”
“I am. Thanks for asking.”
“You’re sure?”
He looks at her like he doesn’t really believe it and she hesitates, thinking of the manic designing she’s accomplished in the last few hours. “I’m feeling better at least, let’s put it that way.”
“What happened here?” He reaches to her face and brushes his fingertips over her cheekbone.
“What’s there?” Her own hand rises to her face.
“Looks like you got a sunburn.”
“Oh, that. I was sitting outside earlier. Sketching.” She stands then, opens one of the porch windows, and sits again. “So what’s going on? You wanted to ask me something?”
“I do.” He sits back and still considers her. “It’s about your dog. I was wondering if you’ve found a home for her yet.”
“No. Everyone wants a puppy. Why, do you know someone who will take her?”
He nods. “Me. I will. I’d love to have her.”
“What?”
He holds up his hands, unwilling to argue. “She’s a great dog, Maris. And once my studio is open here, I’ll be home a lot, working out back. She’ll be good company for me.”
“That is very sweet, and she’d be so happy living at the beach. But are you sure?”
The dog lies near him watching him talk. “I am.” Jason hitches his head toward her. “And I don’t think she’ll have a problem with it either.”
Maris leans forward and sees the dog lying at his feet. “Are you kidding? She loves you.” She watches the dog for a moment, then sits back fighting tears.
“What’s wrong? I thought you’d be glad.”
“I am. This is the best news, don’t get me wrong. But I’ve had some other news, too, and yes, I would love for you to have Madison. But not yet.”
“Wait. You’re leaving tomorrow, right?”
“There’s been a change of plans. I’ll be here another two weeks at least.”
“What’s going on?”
Maris stands and moves near the windows facing the direction of the Sound. “I could tell you it’s all about my father’s house, that offers are
coming in and so I’ve postponed leaving.” She turns and faces him. “But you wouldn’t buy that, would you?”
“Seeing you upset like this? Probably not.”
“I didn’t think so. But it’s really personal. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Seems like it’s floored you though.”
“That would be putting it mildly.” She sits again and turns to him. “So I’ll be around for a little while longer.”
“And not sounding too happy about it.”
“I wish I could be. You know I love it here. But things happen sometimes that have a way of overshadowing everything else.”
Jason reaches to a glass lamp on a small table between them and adjusts the shade. “Maris, I know a little something about shadows. Believe me. And sometimes you just have to let an old friend distract you for a while to get rid of them.”
“What do you mean?” she asks, a slow smile spreading over her face.
“I mean I’ve got the perfect cure for your blues. Come on,” he says, standing and heading to the door. “Let me take you out.”
“What about your work?”
“It’s my lunch hour. I’ve got time. Lock up, it’ll be worth it.”
Jason drives on roads past old farmhouses and red barns. There are green pastures and long stretches of crumbling stone walls until he gets on the highway and heads north.
“Give me a hint where we’re going?”
“No hints.” He wants it to be a surprise. When he’d touched her cheek earlier, it looked like it could only be one thing, that she’d been crying.
“Hm.” She looks out at the scenery. “Taking me out for an ice cream in the country?”
“I could, afterward. But that’s not it. And no more guessing.”
“Okay then.” She turns in her seat to face him, resting her head on the seat back. “So tell me about these preliminary drawings you’ve done.”
He glances at her and describes the home at Grey Rock. “It’s a really imposing cottage and wants a lot of attention.” He describes the large open front porch and the walls of windows facing the sea. “I raised the ceiling on the first floor to fit taller windows, so the sunlight pours inside.”
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